Along with gearing up to release "Go With the Flow" as the second single from Songs for the Deaf, Queens of the Stone Age main men Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri are, as usual, working on a variety of projects.

Homme is planning the next Desert Sessions assembly for February and, along with Queens guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, recently contributed to the second album from U.N.K.L.E.

The Stone Age rockers spent just six hours with DJ Shadow and James Lavelle's experimental trip-hop project, but came out with one track Homme has very tentatively titled "the bad-ass tune on the new U.N.K.L.E record."

"They just have a dark way of making you still be able to dance, which is nice," Homme said of U.N.K.L.E.

As for the ninth Desert Sessions album (see "Queens Of The Stone Age Frontman Gets Dizzy In The Desert"), Homme will be joined by former Marilyn Manson bassist Twiggy Ramirez, Dean Ween and possibly PJ Harvey when they record impromptu-style at Joshua Tree National Park in California.

"I think bands want to play together, and it's primarily for that," Homme said. "I think it's cool that it comes out and people review it and that's good, but the main reason is, 'Do you remember why you started playing?' "

Oliveri will likely also join the next Desert Sessions, but his first priority early next year is to finish the second album from his other band, Mondo Generator. The bassist said it will include material left over from the group's Cocaine Rodeo (2000) as well as songs he has written recently.

Homme and Oliveri also have Stone Age commitments, which include coming up with a concept for the "Go With the Flow" video and touring Japan and Australia in January. Queens, after all, is their first love.

"We all do things outside the band, just like a merry bunch of minstrels skipping through the countryside ... breaking off and doing other things," Homme said. "It makes you really glad to come back to the band. It's sort of like an important adventure for everyone else to go out and discover things and bring that ship back."